Israel escalates attacks on Hamas

0:01Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, September 10th, and this is your FT News Briefing. The U.S. made a major update to its annual jobs numbers, and Israel stepped up its attacks on Hamas. Plus, South Korean companies in the U.S. routinely use questionable worker visas. I'm Sonia Hudson, and here's the news you need to start your day.

0:35Updated jobs data in the U.S. suggests the labor market started cooling a lot earlier than we thought during the Biden administration. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the revised numbers yesterday. The revision roughly cut in half the number of jobs thought to have been added from April 2024 to March 2025. It's the largest revision on record. The report is a boost to President Donald Trump. He's argued that his aggressive tariff and immigration policies were not to blame for recent signs of weakness in the labor market.

1:17Israel is escalating its war on Hamas. The country launched an attack on Hamas officials in Qatar yesterday, and it ordered all residents of Gaza City to evacuate. Here to talk more about this is the FT's Middle East editor, Andrew England. Hi, Andrew. Hi. So first off, tell me what we know about this attack in Qatar and how significant of an escalation it is. Yeah, what we know so far is that Israel is acknowledging targeting Hamas political leaders in Qatar, which is where the group's political leadership has been based for more than a decade in exile. They have attacked Hamas officials in other countries.

2:00The difference with Qatar, Qatar is, you know, it's a U.S. ally. It's a Western ally. You know, this is a country with a lot of expats. It's, you know, one of the world's biggest gas exporters. And everybody has known that they've hosted Hamas's political office since 2012. And that's enabled them to take the central role in negotiations. And they were still mediating in the days leading up to this attack. So in that sense, it's quite extraordinary. And what are other countries in the Middle East saying about this attack? There's been broad condemnation from regional countries. I mean, Arab states, the regional states in the Middle East were already concerned about Israel's, what they see is increasing belligerence across the region.

2:46So, you know, Israel overnight launched airstrikes in Syria, according to the Syrian news agency. They're regularly bombing Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, despite there being a ceasefire. So this kind of adds to this sense that, you know, Israel is unbound. Israel is just acting with impunity across the region, and it's a real concern. Now, Andrew, let's talk about Gaza. Why is Israel ordering evacuations from the enclave's largest city, Gaza City? Yeah, this comes after Israel said it would step up a new offensive on Gaza City. It's still home to about one million people, most of whom have already been displaced multiple times.

3:32But Israel, after 22 months of war, is saying that it wants to go back to Gaza City with a large offensive. And it's saying that it's doing this to essentially force Hamas into surrender and recover the remaining 48 hostages. About 20 of those hostages are believed to be alive. But the consequences for the people in Gaza are catastrophic. I mean, Western nations, European nations, including Israel's traditional allies, have repeatedly warned that this will deepen an already disastrous humanitarian situation in Gaza. What does this all tell you about the status of the war? Is it entering a new phase either on the ground or in terms of how the international community has responded?

4:23Certainly another escalatory phase. I mean, there have been multiple escalatory phases over the last 22 months, and that's why people are extremely worried. I think there's a growing opinion in Israel and outside Israel among Israel's allies that the war should end now. It has no strategic value. Hamas has been severely depleted and weakened and is not in a position to repeat the attack it committed on October the 7th in 2023. And there needs to be a ceasefire. But the key, of course, is the U.S. response. And the U.S. has not put any pressure on Israel, certainly not publicly, not to expand its offensive into Gaza City.

5:08And we haven't yet, as we're speaking now, seen a response to the attack on the Hamas buildings in Doha, although we are told that the U.S. was aware of the attack before it took place. Andrew England is the FT's Middle East editor. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks.

5:35There's a new copper mining conglomerate on the block. UK-based Anglo-American is combining with Canada's tech resources to form a$50 billion company. It'll be known as Anglo Tech and be headquartered in Vancouver. The deal marks a big bet on copper by Anglo-American. And it's another example of the global battle for critical minerals driving consolidation in the mining sector. Anglo will own a slightly bigger part of the company, 62%. Like Anglo-American, Anglo Tech will have its primary listing on the London Stock Exchange, which is welcome news for the struggling exchange. challenge.

6:24South Korean companies are worried after U.S. immigration authorities raided a battery plant being built by Hyundai and LG. The raid in Georgia led to the detention of nearly 500 workers. Korean conglomerates have routinely used unsuitable worker visas for years, according to FT sources. They say they have no other choice if they want to make good on the investments they promised the U.S. government. Here to explain what this means for Korean investment in the U.S. is Christian Davies. He's the FT's sole bureau chief. Hi, Christian. Hello. So tell us what you discovered about Korean companies and their use of American visas.

7:09Well, South Korean companies making these big investments and constructing these huge advanced manufacturing facilities in the US, have routinely been using visas which could arguably be questionable at best. Visas that are supposed to be designed to facilitate business visits, but not work as such. But they argue that they were forced to do so because the US does not provide South Korea with a country-specific working visa scheme. And so they say that they've been caught in an impossible situation where America has been pushing and to some extent with tariffs coercing South Korean companies to invest in the U.S., but without giving them the means to supply the labor which they argue is necessary to get these plants up and running.

8:06Well, let's dig into that a little bit. Why couldn't these Korean companies just use American workers? Well, firstly, they do use many American workers. I think there's different kinds of category. The category of worker that's got the most attention is the specialist. So if you are building a battery plant or a semiconductor plant, you need people with experience in these advanced technologies. And of course, the whole point of South Korean companies building these is because America doesn't have or at least has much less of this knowledge than South Korea does. However, it seems that there's another problem.

8:50What we have in the United States is an extremely tight labor market where construction workers are either not available or they are very easily tempted away by nearby projects. And a crucial part of this context is that a lot of these plants are being built with the assistance of government money, which come with conditions often relating to meeting certain deadlines. And so what seems to have been happening is that Korean companies were importing workers at short notice in order to try and get the project done within the deadline. Christian, where does this all leave Korean investment in the U.S.?

9:34Yeah, South Korea is the largest foreign investor in greenfield projects in the United States and one of the largest investors in the United States. And they are emphasizing their relationship with the United States for two reasons. One, on the security side, North Korea is growing stronger and stronger, both in terms of its nuclear weapons program, but also its blossoming relationship with Russia. Secondly, Korean companies are very quickly losing their cost competitiveness and their technological leadership to Chinese rivals. And so the Korean economy is under terrible pressure. And the answer in both of those areas is the United States.

10:18And that won't change because of this immigration rate. And so they have no choice but to grin and bear it and effectively to swallow this humiliation. Christian Davies is the FT's sole bureau chief. Thanks, Christian. Thank you.

10:38Before we go, French President Emmanuel Macron has appointed a new prime minister. If you're keeping count at home, that is his seventh one since he took office. Macron chose one of his closest allies, Defense Minister Sébastien Lecarnot. He's hoping that Garnier can quell political turmoil over the country's budget. You can read more on all these stories for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

11:28I'm Hugh MacArthur, chairman of Bain & Company's Global Private Equity Practice and host of Dry Powder, a podcast where I sit down with some of private equity's leading investors, such as TPG's Jim Coulter. Somehow the industry keeps growing, and it has more survival power than people think. KKR's Pete Stavros. Driving operational change is really hard. And Vista's Robert Smith. As a market dampened, guess what? We were able to monetize 18 companies. If you want to understand how the best investors are positioned for what's next, subscribe to Dry Powder today.

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